Staten Island Middle School Being Used as a Morgue, Residents Say Post-Sandy conditions on Staten...

Staten Island Middle School Being Used as a Morgue, Residents Say

Post-Sandy conditions on Staten Island are both horrific and tragically underreported—many have died in mass flooding, either unwilling or unable to evacuate in time. Now we’re getting reports that the casualties have become so bad that Egbert Intermediate School near Midland Beach has been turned into a makeshift overflow morgue.

We spoke with one displaced couple who relayed information they’d received from former neighbors, claiming that flooding deaths have been widely underestimated: “several people have been able to see them pulling out bodies” from flooded homes, our sources say, with multiple local tweeters corroborating the use of Egbert as body storage facility. One resident said her neighbor—a former NYPD officer—estimated as many as 60 unidentified bodies are being stored at the school, and that she “personally witnessed 11 bodies on Tuesday morning being removed from Oakwood beach area.” The area, we’re told, was already prone to flooding due to a shoddy drainage system that clogs up under even regular rainfall.

We’re waiting to hear back from the New York City Office of Emergency Management for more details, but an Army National Guard spokesperson confirmed that the morgue does exist—how bad the body count is remains murky. Using a government building like this during emergency conditions isn’t unusual, but could indicate this thing is much worse than it seems in some corners of the country.

If you’ve heard anything from the area, please get in touch with us—but don’t do anything that could put yourself in any danger.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/NjYE59fM1h8/34781870991

VIRGIN MEDIA VIEWSONIC VERISIGN VERIFONE HOLDINGS VEECO INSTRUMENTS VARIAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT ASSOCIATES UNITED ONLINE